According to a post of the SDRV (the German refs association) on Facebook the official German translation is currently being worked on. I find it a bit irritating, that they’ve removed the Afrikaans version of the laws since South Africa are in the WR counsil. Maybe they’re just updating them.

I am in favour of the trial and should be given a chance and see the results in the upcoming season.

A lot of people are going a bit silly over this variation. Claiming the game is 'going soft' etc. Which is bullshit. It's not 'going soft' to attempt to safeguard players from future complications from CTE related issues. And it's not like you're going to miss any big hits. In fact, I was taught that tackling though the sternum with it being one of the centres of gravity on the human body was more impactful than targeting the head. So they'll still be prevalent. Players will now just need to be more conscious of their body positioning going into contact. I'm all for this measure.

If this were introduced several years back then I would have had no issues with my kid brother playing the game. But CTE has been a major worry for both my brother and I who grew up playing contact/collision sports and we didn't want it to possibly affect our kid brother (I should note. Neither of us have issues as far as we know but considering all the knocks we took over the courses of around 250 - 300 odd games it's something that weighs on your mind).

I totally agree on all of this, I want to know where this is heading in the long term. It is a big issue that not many people have picked up on, we are heading in a major change to the sport in terms of how to coach the Tackle and enforce correct techniques which are already in place.

It is not just the CTE but the damages to the Spinal cord and spine that are underreported as it is not as visual as a concussion.

The issue that is happening for many NFL players - now in their 60s and 70s and played during the days before superstardom - is that they suffer from terrible headaches and depression because of this. But people don't see these because they only really focus on the current players for their teams and not 30-40 years after they retire (unless they were the star).

You ask any player, they'll tell you they'd rather have a concussion than a knee injury. The sports with the highest concussion rate in the US are...Girls Soccer and Cheerleading...but no one is out there with a War on cheerleading, but Bryant Gumble has already started the war on soccer.

TheStroBro wrote:The sports with the highest concussion rate in the US are...Girls Soccer and Cheerleading...

That's really surprising. Do you have a source for that? That's actually something to talk to parents to worried to let their kids play rugby.

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.

FLIDTA RISXVA wrote:I assume translators were either not German or alien to rugby

When a global body starts such an ambitious project it should contact native rugby Union | folks

This sorry example once again showcases Dublin's arrogant stance towards T2 world

:::

Translator was actually the German Ref Association (SDRV), according to their facebook page. It was by their initiative and there might be one or two orthography mistakes in it. But that's still a milestone for German rugby. Great work.

@Flidta Risxva, this is not "alien to rugby" this is an argument between purists and progressives. German words for some rugby things are extremely old (some 150+ year) and some do sound strange. A lot of regional federations don't use them. I honestly think that "maul", "ruck" and "mark" (this one I actually never even heard before as "Marke") are used way more than the old German words. I think, some small mistakes aside, they did a great job.

On their facebook page, there is only one single negative comment and 20-30 positive ones.

How to grow rugby worldwide?Look at the world ranking in July. Teams ranked 1-10 have to play one team from 11-20 (they don't play in a regular competition) away the next year. 11-20 play 21-30 away and so on. Yes, it really is that simple.

And this version was written in the German terms I talked about. The usage of the English terms is kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy, if the only official version of the laws you can use is written in English and all the coaches and a large player base is English speaking, of course you’d use the English terms.

Also I find Maul especially disturbing in the German version of the law book without an IPA guide of its pronounciation.